Solon

In 1811 and 1812 a Venetian in his early twenties was studying in Rome on a scholarship, and this canvas was the exercise he had to send home to prove he was learning. Francesco Hayez chose a scene from Herodotus. Croesus, the fabulously rich king of Lydia, has shown off his treasure to the Athenian lawgiver Solon and asked the question he thinks he knows the answer to: who is the happiest man alive? He expects his own name. Solon tells him instead that no one can be called happy until you see how his whole life ends, since fortune can turn on anyone. Hayez keeps it calm and sculptural, the way Rome was teaching him. Leopoldo Cicognara, who ran the Venice academy, liked it enough to buy it for the collection where it still hangs.